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UGA's Rutherford Hall named to "most imperiled" list

The Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation on Tuesday named the University of Georgia’s Rutherford Hall as one of its “Places in Peril” for 2012.

The trust names 10 places or buildings each year to the list in hopes that heightened awareness might help save endangered and important historical, archaeological and cultural resources.

UGA President Michael Adams last month announced plans to tear down the historic dormitory, despite opposition from current and former residents of Rutherford, as well as state and national preservation groups. It makes more sense to tear down Rutherford, a small building of only 159 beds, and replace it with a larger residence hall of 260 beds, university officials said.

Built in 1939 under the federal Public Works Administration, Rutherford is one of UGA’s oldest dorms and part of the historic Myers Hall quadrangle on UGA’s South Campus.

Despite the dorm’s historic importance, trust members were unsure at first if it should be on this year’s list, said Mark McDonald, the group’s president and CEO.

“We try to use this list to make a difference in the plight of these historic properties,” he said. “It seems as though the (UGA) administration has made a final decision, and we didn’t know if placing it on the list would do any good.”

But they decided that putting Rutherford on the list might save other buildings in the future, even if Rutherford is torn down.

“We are concerned that this might be a pattern, and there might be other demolitions of historic buildings on the Georgia campus planned that would greatly diminish the historic character of the university,” McDonald said.

UGA student Kyle Campbell hopes Rutherford’s inclusion on the list may prompt the state Board of Regents to enforce board policy and a state law that requires state agencies such as UGA to prepare historic preservation plans that identify important historical resources under the agency’s management.

“It’s one example of what happens when the law goes unenforced,” said Campbell, president of UGA’s Student Historic Preservation Organization.

Campbell and McDonald still have some hope UGA could reverse course and preserve Rutherford.

“We never give up till the very end,” McDonald said.

Of the 60 sites named to previous “most imperiled” lists, 26 have been saved, three lost, and 31 remain in limbo, he said.

Other sites on this year’s list include Orange Hall in St. Marys; the W.W. Law House in Savannah; historic railroad buildings of Atlanta; Historic Liberty Street in Milledgeville; the Randolph County Courthouse in Cuthbert; Mt. Zion Church in Sparta; Crown Mill Store in Dalton; Secondary Industrial High School in Columbus; and Chattahoochee Park Pavilion in Gainesville.

Sites on previous lists that have been rescued include The Wren’s Nest, the Atlanta home of author Joel Chandler Harris, and Capricorn Studios in Macon, where the Allman Brothers recorded music.